


The Bystander Effect

by Tekhnetos



Series: Robot Pickup Lines [3]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: ??? - Freeform, A suspicious lack of pick up lines, Eggman is in turns disturbed then confused then exasperated, M/M, Not really much of anything to be honest, date plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 15:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11466141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tekhnetos/pseuds/Tekhnetos
Summary: Eggman wanted answers. Unfortunately, it seemed that none were forthcoming.





	The Bystander Effect

Dr Ivo Robotnik, more commonly known as Dr Eggman, was Disturbed. As in, capital D Disturbed. As in, the current situation was rating an eleven out of ten on his internal weird-o-meter. And Dr Eggman had seen some weird shit. Eggman had seen an alien invasion. Eggman had been a co-conspirator in said alien invasion. Point being, this was not an ordinary level of weird. This was advanced weird. So, Disturbed. 

The source of the doctor’s current disturbance was the freeze frame displayed on the monitor in front of him. Or, to be more accurate, the video that had led up that freeze frame. The image was of his long time nemesis, Sonic the Hedgehog, blowing a kiss to one of his robots. The robot in question was Metal Sonic. 

This, on its own, was not particularly noteworthy. Sonic went almost out of his way to make fun of Eggman and his minions at every given opportunity. But Eggman had video footage of the whole incident. More importantly, and rather unfortunately for the doctor’s continued sanity, Eggman had audio recording of the whole incident. 

The doctor was never going to be able to un-hear the phrase ‘your chassis are out of this world’. That was not something he had ever wanted to hear his enemy to say. 

So, Disturbed. 

It did not help that he knew that this was likely neither a one sided thing nor the first time it had happened. While he had no footage or recording of the incident prior to the one recorded on his cameras when Sonic had blown up his factory right under Metal’s nose, he did know that Metal had looked up the phrase ‘robot pickup lines’ in the middle of the battle using the bases internet. All of the evidence pointed to one reasonable conclusion: Sonic and Metal Sonic were flirting.

Sonic and the robot that Eggman had built for the express purpose of killing him were flirting with each other. And it had apparently been the robot that had initiated it. And it seemed to be mutual. How did these things happen? How was this his life?

The real question here was why. Metal had been extremely shifty about it when questioned after the first incident, but Eggman had been too happy about finally getting ahold of one of the chaos emeralds to care. He had, of course, considered that it had only been some sort of diversion tactic; but that would not explain Metal’s reluctance to talk about it and subsequent clumsy retreat. It definitely did not explain why it had worked on Sonic well enough to distract him from an emerald in the first place, or why Metal had tripped over himself like that when Sonic had flirted back in the factory. 

Eggman wanted answers. However, it seemed that no answers were forthcoming. 

————

When alarms started blaring through the base and one of the hanger doors was destroyed by a spiked ball of blue hedgehog traveling at high velocity, Metal Sonic immediately deployed himself to meet Sonic without waiting for orders from Dr Eggman. This was standard procedure; after the first few times that Eggman had gotten angry with his creation for waiting for orders and thus being to slow to react Metal had started just going ahead to fight Sonic without them. This had suited Eggman just fine right up until now. 

Right now he suspected the robot of having some sort of strange affair with the hedgehog. On the -maybe- bright side, Metal had totally forgotten that he was being watched and recorded on the factory cameras when Sonic had entered the scene, so it was possible that Eggman might be able to get some more information about the situation by observing them if they didn’t know he was watching. 

He turned his attention back to the camera feed, muting the microphone on his end but not on theirs, making it so he could hear them but didn’t have to risk them hearing him. Then he sat back to watch.

The battle had already moved from the hanger into one of the bases many corridors and dents had already appeared in several of the steel walls. It was to be expected from two such high speed combatants that he could miss so much by turning away for only a handful of seconds. That at least, seemed to be normal. Maybe he was overreacting.

Or not. Sonic turned to Metal as he ducked a punch and said, “Fancy seeing you here handsome. Its been a while hasn’t it?” in place of one of his more normal cocky quips about Metal being slow. It was jarring to hear coming out of the hedgehog’s mouth and the way it was said reminded the doctor of Rouge more than anything else. It was definitely strange to see them actually stop the fight to stare each other down across the hallway. 

Thankfully for Eggman, Metal immediately wrecked whatever mood was there with, “This is the doctor’s base. Where else would I logically be?” 

“I don’t know, out on a mission or something? It’s just a conversation starter, you don’t need to take it so seriously. Loosen up a bit.” 

Metal tilted his head to the side. “How exactly would I ‘loosen up’? If I did that I might fall apart—”

“Not literally Mets,” sighed the hedgehog, “It’s just an expression.”

“It is another colloquialism?” 

“Sure, that thing. I’m just trying to open a conversation.”

“Oh, are we flirting again then?” asked the robot, and then immediately followed it up with, “Are you the square root of negative one? Because you can’t be real.”

Eggman sighed in aggravation from where he was watching the video feed. Why was Metal Sonic so clueless? At least he had confirmation flirting was actually what was going on now. But still. 

Sonic actually seemed to flail for a few moments before regaining control of himself. “Sorry Mets, I wasn’t expecting this today so I don’t have any lines for you.” He admitted easily. 

“I have a database of them. Your organic brain obviously has inferior memory recall. It is just another way that I am better than you.” 

“Yeah, well,” the hedgehog floundered for a few more seconds, “I can still beat you in a fight. You lost last time.”

“I won the time before that. And I am better at flirting than you.” The robot fired back. 

“Well at leat I could actually get a date!” Sonic replied.

“Are you implying that I couldn’t? I am superior to you in all things, including dating.”

“Prove it.” Sonic spat back, and then immediately looked as though he regretted it as he actually registered what he had said. 

“Fine. Go on a date with me.” Metal said. Of course he thought that was a reasonable action. Eggman looked away a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. 

If Eggman knew his enemy, and he did, then Sonic would only do one of two things in this situation; he would either backtrack and cause a commotion to cover up his blunder or he would -   
“Fine then. I’m free on Thursday.” - Refuse to back out entirely. 

“It’s a date then.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

“Fine.”

They paused. 

“So where are we going?” the hedgehog ventured after a few moments of awkward silence. 

Eggman watched as a notification popped up in the corner of his screen, informing him that Metal Sonic was accessing the network.

“I have been informed that the movies is a traditional first date activity.” The robot replied. 

Eggman checked what Metal was looking up. He was googling dating tips in the middle of setting up a date. Of course. 

“That sounds…actually normal. Okay, what are we going to see?”

The notification popped right back up again. Metal was totally winging this wasn’t he? Then again, Metal Sonic was just a copy of Sonic, so it made a good deal of sense that he would be equally adverse to the thought of backing out of this as the hedgehog was. 

“The movie with the highest rating is currently Wonder Woman.”

Sonic seemed to consider it. “Yeah alright what time are we meeting up?”

“There is a showing at six pm. Half an hour before that would be optimal.”

“I can meet you outside of the theatre?”

“That would be satisfactory.” Metal nodded, “One more thing; is it not also traditional for males to bring flowers as a gift for their date?” 

Sonic looked a little thrown off by that, but nodded anyway.

“If we are both male then who brings the flowers?”

The hedgehog stewed on that for a moment, adopting a thoughtful expression, and then, “Both of us do.” He said decisively. “I bet I can find better flowers than you anyway.”

Is that what this was? Some kind of one-upping contest? Gay chicken? Actually, knowing the two of them, that would make a lot of sense. Eggman turned his attention back to the conversation. 

Metal nodded. “Then it is decided.” 

And then they went right back to their fight as though nothing had happened at all. 

In the end half of the base was trashed and several hundred thousand dollars of machinery and equipment was destroyed, but Metal Sonic did manage to drive Sonic off before he could get to the chaos emeralds. They decided to call it a draw. 

Eggman decided that he would have to give a bit of fatherly advice before Thursday. It would not do for his creation to be shown up by that rodent after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Right then. Thats the end of this series. I have one more metonic work to come, but thats not involved with this and is its own story. It might be the next thing to come out but I doubt it. Knowing me it will probably be Dance Macabre or Frame Of Mind next. Anyway, I would appreciate any overall thoughts on how I can improve my writing now that this is done with.


End file.
